BREAKING: The co-pilot who tried to seize control of a Flydubai passenger jet mid-flight asked his captain for permission to pray — then attacked him from behind with a cockpit crash axe, the captain said, according to a report from The Times of Israel.
Capt. Smit Machchhar, an Indian national, described the ambush from his hospital bed in Abu Dhabi in a video call released by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He said the flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv began normally and that he had been looking toward the front of the cockpit while his co-pilot prayed. Minutes later, according to his account, the co-pilot struck him from behind.
It was an ambush, not a dispute — and it nearly killed 182 people.
UAE Attorney General Hamad Saif Al Shamsi confirmed Saturday that the co-pilot "attempted to carry out a terrorist act," attacking the captain inside the flight deck with a crash axe and trying to take control of the aircraft's flight controls, according to the Associated Press and NBC News.
The suspect has been identified by multiple sources from three agencies briefed on the investigation and a Middle East diplomat as Hamam al-Hammami, an Omani national, NBC News reported. Authorities have not officially released his identity.
PLANE PLUNGED 17,000 FEET
The flight, FZ1073, was carrying more than 170 people, mostly Israeli passengers, from Dubai to Tel Aviv on Wednesday when the attack unfolded roughly two and a half hours into the journey. The aircraft plunged 17,000 feet before passengers and crew managed to overpower the attacker and regain control, according to coverage from UK outlets.
Machchhar described being on the floor, injured, as the plane sank. "I was acting for my own life, but at the same time, I knew I couldn't let all of them die," he said, adding that he told himself to "give just one last push" to open the cockpit door from the inside — the move that allowed passengers to rush in and subdue the assailant.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News that after the attacker was subdued, he called out to the crew: "Kill me, kill me!"
The weapon had been a key question for investigators given the stringent security on such a sensitive route. Early passenger reports suggested it may have been a knife. The UAE prosecutor general's statement Saturday confirmed it was the cockpit's crash axe.
Al-Hammami was transferred from Saudi Arabia to Abu Dhabi on Thursday, Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry said. The statement said his health had "improved," though his medical condition remained unclear, according to NBC News.
A HISTORY OF RED FLAGS IGNORED
The warning signs were there. While working at Oman Air, al-Hammami was removed from flight training because of concerns over his radical views and was given another role at Oman's national airline, US media reported. He still ended up in a cockpit on a route into Israel.
Let that sink in. A man flagged for radicalization by one airline was later flying paying passengers — on a flight to Tel Aviv, no less.
Australian authorities confirmed Sunday they were investigating his "links" to the country. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, citing sources, reported he was issued a student visa in 2014 and studied in Australia between 2015 and 2017 before leaving. Counter-terrorism officials will examine whether he was radicalized in Australia, the ABC reported.
He later completed a three-year distance-learning course run by Buckinghamshire New University in the UK and graduated with a degree in aviation management in 2023. The university said he did not take any pilot training there.
New evidence also revealed the suspect's apparent affinity for al-Qaeda, according to Breitbart, along with pro-al-Qaeda propaganda calling for further attacks on aircraft carrying Americans and Israelis.
THE THREAT DIDN'T END AT 35,000 FEET
Here is what matters for every American who boards a plane: the propaganda that apparently animated this attack is calling for more of them. The target profile — aircraft carrying Americans and Israelis — is not theoretical. It is a standing invitation, issued by terrorists, and this week one of their would-be soldiers nearly answered it with an axe and 182 lives.
Emirati officials are leading the investigation. The deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, Hamdan bin Mohammed, posted photos on X after visiting Machchhar in the hospital, in which he is seen kissing the pilot's head and shaking his hand. Machchhar appeared with one arm in a cast and medical dressings.
The captain's decision to force open that door — injured, on the floor, with the plane in a dive — is the only reason this story is a foiled attack and not a mass grave.
Our Take
Every layer of this story is a failure of the system that is supposed to keep terrorists off airplanes.
One airline — Oman Air — identified this man as a radical and pulled him from flight training. He was not reported, not blacklisted, not stopped. He walked out of that airline with his career intact and strolled into a cockpit pointed at Tel Aviv. That is not a gap in security. That is a pipeline.
Then there is the question Australia now says it is investigating: was he radicalized on a student visa in a Western country? If the answer is yes, the visa system let in the man who later tried to murder 182 people with an axe at 35,000 feet. The same system that the establishment tells us is airtight and humane.
And above all: al-Qaeda propaganda is reportedly calling for more attacks on planes carrying Americans and Israelis. Not Israelis. Americans too. You. Your family. The family in row 22 heading to a wedding. The intelligence failures, the ignored red flags, and the open propaganda all point to one conclusion — the next attacker is already in the system, and the people who flagged him the first time are the same ones telling you not to worry.
Capt. Machchhar is a hero. He should not have had to be. How many more red flags have to be ignored before someone in a position of authority does the obvious thing and grounds a radical with a crash axe before he ever reaches the cockpit?
